Body Scandal
I admit that I wasn’t too thrilled with Matsugane Yôko’s new look when she made her first reappearance earlier this year after her hiatus: she looked gaunt, less curvy and her breasts seemed smaller. Further, her pictorials since then have also been more on the… uh… slutty (for lack of a better word) side. Her two earlier releases in 2006, Shûtaisei Densetsu I and II, were seemingly filmed in mid to late 2005, so Body Scandal is the first good look we’ve gotten at the “new” Yôko. Well, I’m eating crow now: after the mind-numbing garbage of Perfect Collection 2, and the only “pretty good” double discs earlier this year, Body Scandal shuts my mouth with a good hard punch full of Yôko goodness to the face.
For those of you who absolutely hate Yôko’s recent look, you’re out of luck though: make no mistake, this is the new, leaner Yôko, so you can stop reading now and go do something else. For those of you with more of an open mind, let’s take a look at the eleven main tracks which make up this disc. Once the opening montage rolls (which is well done and whets your appetite for the rest of the disc), we have Yôko on some stairs in a bikini and a very short skirt. Surprisingly, there is a fair amount of focus on Yôko’s ass and legs here. Don’t misunderstand - as is typical for a Yôko DVD, her breasts still maintain their prominent position in the camera work, but there are a fair number of shots focusing on her legs or shooting up skirt. Yôko does the smouldering thing here, and reminds me why she’s one of the greats of the genre – she really plays to the camera well here. From sultry to giddy, Yôko runs along the beach in a very tight blue bikini in this scene, acting very cute and happy. My god… the bouncing breasts…. Ahem. About halfway through she stops and poses on the shore. Generally speaking, she looks really good her, but it’s very obvious she’s lost a lot weight here as you can occasionally see her ribs from certain angles. Considering the amount of sunlight the camera crew was working with here, all the colours come through very nicely.
Next, we have our goddess ‘sleeping’ in a four-post bed in cute little pink, two-piece outfit. The camera circles around her shooting from various angles. Yôko then ‘wakes up’ and then everything gets very boobcentric – Yôko presses them together, arches her back, sticks her chest out , hugs her arms over her torso while the camera shoots from above, below, or just plains zooms right in on them. Yôko has a cute/sexy (or ero-kawaii) vibe here which makes this one of the best on the disc. Following that, we have her in the shower wearing some see through lingerie (bikini underneath of course). Most of this scene consists of Yôko with her breasts pressed up against the shower’s glass door while she uses the nozzle to spray water on her chest. Eventually, she does turn around and presses her behind against the glass for a change. It’s a pretty good scene, but is a little repetitive due to the limited camera angles and motion. The end is a little weird – in complete silence (as in the soundtrack cuts out and nothing is heard at all), Yôko comes out of the shower, undoes the strings on her lingerie and bikini top then just stands there holding her hands over her boobs.
The water theme continues in the next two tracks. First, we have Yôko in a red bikini swimming in a clear blue pool. She pops out of the water occasionally, giving us spectacular views of her magnificent mammaries, but it’s a little bit of a waste of to have her underwater for most of the scene. She does a little sunbathing at the end. Next up is, in, my opinion, Yôko in one of the greatest bikinis ever created: silver, with a large section cut-out of the top and squishes her boobs together to form the World’s Greatest Cleavage. Lounging around and in a small tub, the slow moving scene lets the camera do most of the work, which is handled pretty well. Interesting angles and varying zooms and pans keep your eyes glued to the screen. In the final part of this scene, Yôko is in the tub, and positions herself near the water spout, first allowing the water to fall on her crotch, legs spread and all, then on her chest, all while giving the camera a killer sex-bomb type of look… pardon my drool. The main drawback here is the appearance of prominent hipbones when she is lying on the edge of the tub… ugh.
Next up, is the massage scene. While these are clichéd, I generally find them nice to watch and occasionally erotic. Not in this instance, though… the prominent hipbones are back, and they brought along their friends, the visible ribs. Not even an oiled up topless Yôko (lying on her front, of course) can fully save this one. Well, okay… the boob ‘massage’ was quite good, I use massage in the loosest sense possible – mostly just the off camera person making Yôko’s boobs jiggle around. That’s a good thing. After that is a weird little two-part scene – at first the camera mimics someone chasing Yôko into an abandoned building wearing a nice cut ugly patterned swimsuit. She feigns nervousness and backs away from her ‘pursuer’. Then, for no discernable reason, the music and lighting changes completely and we’re back to Yôko posing while lying on the ground with a less sinister feel to the scene. A few nice shots here and there of our lady, but mostly forgettable.
Up next… nude Yôko! Or, at least that’s what we’re supposed to believe. Lounging in a huge bubble filled bathtub, this scene teases us with the prospect of Yôko actually being naked under the bubble-filled water. Roughly halfway through the track, the focus shifts and she’s out sitting and standing near the tub with some very thick bubbles clinging to her boobs and waist. It’s a nice visual, if totally unconvincing effect, as the bubbles are a bit too bikini shaped. Plus, when the camera pans around Yôko, you can actually see the white material showing. Pretty much no movement here – although she was wearing a bikini under the bubbles, it was obviously extremely small, so any movement would have spoiled the bubbles illusion and probably caused Yôko’s impressive chest to break free of it’s tiny cloth prison. The following track has a slower, romantic feel to it as Yôko slinks around a four post bed in a candle lit room wearing some black lingerie – very nice sensual movements and good expressiveness here. A little trouble with the backlighting on occasion, but camera work is quite good and fits the mood of the track – lots of slow pans and an intermingling of close ups (focusing on her face and boobs) and zoomed out shots.
The final track also doubles as the closing credits has Yôko on the beach at night. She’s wearing the requisite tiny bikini and looks mouth watering, but this basically mirrors the previous track in pacing with less movement and less interesting camera work. Still, the interplay of Yôko’s pale skin against the almost pitch black does make for some striking images on occasion. Of course, there is a short making of track as well, which is pretty average – lots of photoshoot action along with Yôko chatting away to the camera on occasion.
To sum it all up: Yôko still looks pretty damned beautiful, even after the weight loss, plus she really seems to connect with the viewer here, even more than she usually does – great facial expressions and graceful motions. For those of you who are only concerned about the twins, don’t worry – they look as good as ever and Yôko is not shy at all about showing them off. With a varied setting and generally good, interesting camera work which shows off all Yôko is offering, Body Scandal is easily her best release so far this year.
Click image to enlarge
Check out JMM's review of 